


A Valentine's Deal

by Shatteeran



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mutually beneficial arrangements, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Pretend Date, Smut, Spontaneity, The Cursed Photoshoot, Valentine's Day, Yet Overthinking, and they were ROOMMATES, mythiamvalentine, sex fantasies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 06:32:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17955377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatteeran/pseuds/Shatteeran
Summary: “I mean, It’s Valentine’s Day,” Liam muttered again, showing no will to provide further indication on his current ailment. The young man started to fiddle with the hem of his navy-blue hoodie, out of boredom or spite – Theo could never tell for certain – or both. “Get dressed, Raeken! I’m taking you on a date!”And, announcement done, Liam all but skipped towards their shared bathroom to freshen up.“You what now?”“M’chta-kin youg ahn a tat,” Liam grinned around his toothbrush, enthusiastically staining his hoodie with drops of mint flavored saliva.“Like Hell you are!”The werewolf spat in the sink, cleaned and put away his toothbrush, while Theo hovered between the couch and the bathroom door, still bewildered at the speed at which his roommate had changed a perfectly calm and relaxing evening into an ill-defined and potentially disastrous night out.





	A Valentine's Deal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyVictoriaDiana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyVictoriaDiana/gifts).



> So here we are, Victoria! I'm about an hour late on the delivery and for that, I'm forever sorry. If you've watched (and loved) the ending of 'Never Been Kissed', you know how much those ten minutes at the edge of the football field can feel like a lifetime... Hopefully you'll find comfort in the knowledge that this is the longest one-shot I've ever written. Hopefully the amount of words makes up for my tardiness a little bit. 
> 
> (I want to thank Janna, Manon and John for their unwavering support as I obsessed compulsively over and over this story. I wouldn't have found the courage to finish and post it without your help.)  
> (I also want to shout out to Cal, who will most likely never read these lines: "Hey! Remember how I said I'd never write Smut? I lied. What's up?")
> 
> Finally (I swear), you probably won't care about this, dear reader, but since I'm already making this way weirder than it should be... I actually got the idea for this fic from a video I can't be assed to find the URL of right now: just a 3-minute long negotiation scene after a somewhat mediocre first date. I thought Thiam could pull it off... They did, didn't they? I just didn't take into account how many words I'd need to set the scene. Also. Hand jobs. Gah.

“This sucks.”

Theo’s grey eyes flickered above the off-white horizon line of the book he was currently reading. He glanced at his roommate before returning to the worn-out pages of _The Great Gatsby_ , a discrete sign that he was paying attention, but was not yet ready to contribute to the conversation. Theo often relied on expressive silences to encourage others, to resume whatever monologs they were started on, and, to reveal more of themselves in the process. Only then would he define a strategy and, depending on the occasion, share insights he hoped would turn out helpful, or push buttons until his unfortunate acquaintance snapped.

“It really sucks,” Liam offered as he burrowed himself into the other side of their ratty olive couch, whose cover fabric Theo had concluded must have been of a deep emerald color, back when its first buyer had picked it up from the store, fifteen or so years ago.

Theo gazed at Liam’s pouting lip, at his arms crossed on his chest, at his feet stretched out on their dusty sprung floor. He turned a page of his book.

“I mean, It’s Valentine’s Day,” Liam muttered again, showing no will to provide further indication on his current ailment. The young man started to fiddle with the hem of his navy-blue hoodie, out of boredom or spite – Theo could never tell for certain – or both.

Theo sniffed the air around them surreptitiously. Theoretically, his own nose could not compare to his roommate’s superior olfactive sense, but he had honed his artificial skills long before Liam had received the bite. To this day, separating the smells of his surroundings from the chemo-signals of his target still came easier to Theo than it did to the bitten werewolf. Theo ignored the dust accumulating under the furniture, the leftover food slowly rotting in the fridge, the never-leaving mold growing in the corner of their bathroom and focused on the grumpy man-boy he had finally agreed to move in with six months prior, when Liam had left Beacon Hills for UC Davis.

Underneath the crimson ashy fumes of anger, he caught the deep, moving, overwhelming, salty scent of sadness and he resolved to inquire more.

“Yes, February the 14th,” Theo confirmed, as he flipped another page for show. He had not been committing the words he had been deciphering to memory for several minutes.

“We’re young, we’re …” Liam marked a dubious pause before pushing through, “… attractive, one of us is funny - …”

“… the other is smart,” Theo supplied teasingly, so used to trading quick jabs with his packmate that they never needed to speak over the other to squeeze in their taunts anymore: they knew their breathing patterns instinctually.

“How come we don’t have dates?” the werewolf finally whined as he slid down a bit more, dropping two pillows on the parquet in the process.

“What makes you think I want a date?” Theo asked, pushing his reading glasses up his nose with his index finger and squirming to find a more comfortable position as he went back two pages.

With a febrile curiosity, Liam tracked the movement as the light of their yellow halogen lamp danced over the ophthalmic lenses, temporarily painting Theo’s irises with gold: the McCall pack – Liam included – had recently discovered, to everyone’s surprise but the chimera himself, that he was slowly losing his supernatural abilities. Without the Dread Doctors’ experiments, and without unsuspecting victims to steal his powers from, his own were unmistakably draining until they would be entirely exhausted.

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” Liam drawled, slightly annoyed by the older boy’s impassive demeanor.

“I didn’t take you for a follower,” Theo commented, a smirk already betraying his next sentence. “Wait…! Do these look red to you?” he added pointing at Liam’s blue eyes, knowing perfectly well that they wouldn’t take the blood hue, characteristic of the Alpha werewolf status, even if Liam transformed into his fighting form.

“I don’t care. Maybe I’m brainwashed. But I won’t be shamed because I want someone to care about one day a year - …”

“… this particular day a year.”

“… someone I get to make feel special and loved - …”

“… plus, of course, New Year’s Eve …”

“… and that will make me feel special and loved, too - …”

“… Christmas …”

“… someone to care about me.”

“… and, for some reason, the entirety of the month of July.”

Liam stopped mid-complaint and rolled his head to throw him an assessing look. Theo snapped Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s novel shut and took his glasses off to level him with a stare of his own. After a minute or so of this implicit non-sense, Liam clapped his hands and pushed on the couch to stand back up.

“This is ridiculous - …”

“Finally, something we can agree upon!”

“Get dressed, Raeken! I’m taking you on a date!”

And, announcement done, Liam all but skipped towards their shared bathroom to freshen up. The werewolf left the beige accordion door open, thus treating Theo with the sounds of gurgling water, foaming toothpaste and slimy hair product. The chemical smells tickled his nostrils, finally tearing him out of his own stupor.

“You what now?”

“M’chta-kin youg ahn a tat,” Liam grinned around his toothbrush, enthusiastically staining his hoodie with drops of mint flavored saliva.

“Like Hell you are!”

The werewolf spat in the sink, cleaned and put away his toothbrush, while Theo hovered between the couch and the bathroom door, still bewildered at the speed at which his roommate had changed a perfectly calm and relaxing evening into an ill-defined and potentially disastrous night out.

“I love it when I get you to make that face,” Liam said cheekily, before turning around and removing his sweater and tee-shirt in one swift move. He wrinkled his clothes and threw the makeshift ball right into the hamper. “You’re not wearing that, are you?” he continued as he brushed past the affronted chimera towards his bedroom and proceeded to select a new outfit.

“I didn’t know you wanted me that badly. Shall I get naked, too?”

Liam’s hands froze over his jeans’ zipper. They had seen each other in their underwear a lot since they had moved in to the shared flat, but the younger man still blushed at his shameless state of undress now that Theo had sexualized the context. With a reproachful and somewhat assassin glare, he stomped back to close his door right on Theo’s nose, leaving it ajar so they could pursue their conversation.

“And there is the face _I_ love,” Theo concluded with a chuckle, as he, too, walked to his room across the apartment.

“Come on, Theo,” Liam begged. The beta werewolf was never above begging, Theo had learnt the hard way: he found it incredibly unfair when he himself struggled to even begin to ask for help. He resented Liam for it, even. “Just a nice hour of good food and pleasant conversation - …”

“… will you talk about the Greeks again?”

“I won’t talk about the Greeks again. This time. You can pick the first topic, if you want. And there will be decorations and lights everywhere. There’s nothing to lose.”

Theo audibly gagged as his imagination puked heart-shaped _everythings_ in all flavors of red and pink in his mind. He took the time to ponder Liam’s latest argument carefully: his roommate always made living in the moment sound so easy. He also always made a huge mistake appear very reasonable until it was too late to back down…

“Yeah, and what is there for me to win?”

On the other side of the living-room, he heard Liam fight with his overflowing closet and exit his bedroom. The boy walked towards the middle of the place and sat on an armrest.

“I’m paying,” he affirmed.

Theo soon joined him, freshly clad with a white button-up shirt. Though he had stuck most of its tail under his skinny grey pants, the shirt was long enough for it to puff a little bit around his torso and arms, conferring him a dignified yet simple style Liam had never expected on him. 

“You should have led with that,” the chimera deadpanned, pretending he had not been changing clothes all along. “You know I cannot refuse free food.”

Liam knew. Although their former enemy had never once come to them for scraps or a roof over his head, they had soon, by the state of his frumps and the rumbles of his stomach, figured out the truth. Preferring his uncomfortable independence to an awkward welcome, Theo had systematically refused any invitation to dinner or sleepover. He had however gracefully accepted the Tupperware boxes left to his attention by Liam’s mother, as well as the old clothes Scott, Stiles, and even Derek, had abandoned behind them, and which Melissa McCall and Sheriff Stilinski had gathered for him. Coaxing the homeless boy into a resemblance of a life had taken most of Liam’s high school senior year. Even now, Theo’s living arrangements were precarious. Exhausted, or finally judging himself deserving of a new start, he had cautiously accepted a new deal with Liam’s parents: in exchange for the last third of the rent neither Liam nor him could afford, he had pledged to insure Liam’s protection in and out of the campus. He had also committed to earn his keep by legal means. And even though he quite enjoyed his duties as a bartender, as they left him enough day time to register for a couple of classes as an auditor, the wage remained small and the tips scarce in this student town.

“Y-you clean up nice,” Liam stammered, genuine surprise marring confused appreciation on his face. Theo didn’t resist the temptation to embarrass him further.

“You mean, for a sewer rat.”

The boy immediately launched himself into a litany of apologies and paraphrases, contradictions and similes, giving Theo the liberty to scrutinize him at leisure. The beta werewolf had also opted for a dress shirt, of a lighter blue than his previously discarded hoodie and of a thinner fabric than Theo’s own choice for their outing. The satiny cloth played with the light and matched Liam’s eyes, making them pop when they flashed through the strands of light brown hair he had styled in a falling fringe.

“Just kidding. You look hot, too,” Theo quipped to end the spells they both seemed to be put under. He grabbed his truck keys from their usual place on the windowsill, mechanically spinning them around his middle finger, and made for the door. “Where to?”

“I never said you looked hot,” Liam objected as he fell into step behind him. The chimera raked his free hand through his hair, fixing his roommate with a glance above his shoulder.

“You didn’t have to.”

“Actually,” Theo’s opportunistic date corrected again. “We’re taking a Uber.”

The intended driver stilled on the doorstep.

“I’m taking you on a date. Just because I don’t have my license doesn’t mean you should drive us,” the blue-eyed werewolf explained as he swirled around Theo, stole the keys from his traitorous hand and returned them to the key jar on the windowsill. “Now, shall we?”

“Like everything else you’ve been spewing for the past twenty minutes, this makes absolutely no sense.”

“Free food,” Liam chanted as he walked backwards with what he no doubt believed to be enticing pass of hands in front of Theo’s face, stopping only when he reached the staircase.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Theo rallied to make sure the boy wouldn’t start up again once they’d reached the lobby. It worked a little bit too well. As soon as they had confirmed their identities to the Uber driver, an awkward silence settled over the backseats of the car. The chimera observed his packmate nervously twist his fingers, caught the frustrated tremble of his chin, followed with his own the random map Liam’s pupils traced all over the upholstery. And he sighed. The promise of an evening of good company and pleasant conversation had been for the both of them, after all. Theo cleared the throat.

“So, the Greeks? I think you left it at Agamemnon rallying troops from the seven Kings to get Menelaus’ wife back…”

Theo decided Liam’s Cheshire cat smile was worth two migraines. He did not think to care for one second whether their driver agreed; but he definitely heard his relieved huff of breath when they reached their destination. They exited the black Mercedes while Liam recounted with large and enthusiastic gestures the passing of Patroclus. Theo blinked at the small steps leading to the entrance of the restaurant, impressed with the carpet covering them with geometrical perfection, and, though he refused to acknowledge it out loud by solidarity with his second-hand furniture, with its deep green color he now was sure their couch had once harbored. Behind him, Liam smiled softly.

“Gotta say I had expected some upgraded diner here. But… How did you get us a last-minute table at The Manic Melon? And today of all days?”

The beta werewolf joined him at the bottom of the tiny yet grandiloquent staircase, sheepish.

“Well,” he started before losing his gaze and the rest of his sentence somewhere on the sidewalk. He inspired, seemingly grabbing them both as they made their attempted escape with one hand, and his flickering bravery with the other. “I had planned ahead… with Hayden going to UC Davis and all… I thought…”

Theo pretended to peruse the menu, plastered under a pristine glass and presented on the silver – and unnecessary – banister, to let his roommate have a moment. Hayden and he had tried, when college had reunited them, but they both had changed. Liam had grown – though not in size, if anybody asked Theo –, learning to take responsibility for his decisions as well as his packmates’ actions, to lead by example, to seek stable alliances and to rely on trustworthy relationships. Hayden’s time away from Beacon Hills had freed her from the weight now solely lying on her ex-boyfriend’s shoulders. She, much like any teen her age, was frivolous and superficial, full of doubts and certainties, constantly jumping from a promise to a last-minute change of plans, faster than she switched topics during a laid-back discussion. They had broken up after a couple of weeks, wishing happiness for each other, but, in the darkness of the new moon, Liam had confided in Theo: deep down, he resented her for her innocence, especially because she had been able to find it again at the expense of his own pain.

“Had saved for it, too…” the younger boy ended with a sad pout.

“So, I’m basically your filler date,” Theo taunted, watching with a sick pleasure as the comment pulled a dumbfounded Liam out of his own thoughts. “I’m ordering the most expensive dessert,” he announced as he walked up the stairs and proceeded to the revolving door of the restaurant. He soon heard the telltale of his packmate running after him on the expensive carpet.

“Fine, but with two spoons. We’re sharing.”

“Fine. But 70/30.”

Liam laughed and, without another word to seal their agreement, he grabbed Theo’s hand in his and pulled him along through the door of The Manic Melon.

When they passed the same revolving door a couple hours and a three-course meal later, they had definitely slowed down their pace. Theo rubbed his stomach softly; Liam felt up his back pocket to make sure he had not forgotten at their table his now considerably lighter wallet. But the college student had no regret. Theo’s contented hum and happy pine tree scent told him that the money had been well-spent. And, even though he would not have placed any bet on it, Liam was convinced his roommate had let him eat more than 40% of their shared chocolate lava cake. Overall, the evening had gone on better than Liam had dared to imagine it. He risked a glance at the chimera standing at his side. The older boy’s head was turned towards the stars. The moon casted shadows on his face and sharpened ivory features. As long as he remained unmoving, Theo resembled one of those statues Liam had gone so many times to the museum to daydream about.

They agreed to walk home to immediately start burning off their latest calorie intake. The chill air slowly cooled off their skin, still warm from the abundance of food and people in the restaurant; and they quickly managed to avoid the main roads, reveling in the regained silence. They strolled leisurely, trading random thoughts for inside jokes, until Liam’s nose caught the impending scent of rain. A shiver ran through his body.

“Come,” he shouted as he grabbed Theo’s hand for the second time that night, pulling him towards a small, gated park, which Liam knew hosted a children’s playground. The older boy’s objections were cut short by the first drop of the upcoming downpour, falling on his eyelashes, and he soon followed after the beta werewolf. They climbed over the metallic fence, trying their best to limit the wavy noise of the corrugated tin. Their cautiousness to respect the ambient calm of the neighborhood flew out the window when they spotted the blue and orange toboggan, hidden behind the foliage. Liam climbed the slide like a monkey, grasping the guardrail with his hands to propel himself upwards. Theo simply jumped directly to the top of the apparatus. And they crouched, face to face under the plastic roof, as the rainstorm suddenly broke around them.

The younger boy listened to the beats of the drops above their heads as he watched the water clean the streets and the facades of the polluted city. He huddled against the corner of the fake house with only three walls for warmth.

“Do you think we would have been friends if - …” he mused.

“… if I hadn’t killed my sister?”

Theo had taken the habit of brutally reminding the Pack of his past crimes, a twisted strategy to reassure himself of their forgiveness, of their acceptance. The beta usually ignored the interventions, but, in their secret hideaway, with the protective curtain of rain to muffle the sounds of their exchange, he faced Theo’s provocation head on. He was met with wide and curious eyes, a glimmer of dark blue rolling under his pupils. Theo cocked his head, spilling the imaginary waves over his cheekbones: a sob turned inwards, perfectly invisible under the chimera’s poker face.

“I meant: if we had met before the Dread Doctors had gotten to you?”

The reformed villain took the time to examine his answer: he thought about the anecdotes Liam’s mother had shared with him during their clipped conversations over the boxes of leftovers going back and forth. He pictured in his head the photo, hung in her kitchen, of the toothless smile and crinkly eyes of a seven-year-old Liam sucking a popsicle. He recalled the eagerness and the now lost innocence of the newly-bitten beta he had met in the Beacon Hills preserve, imagined them amped up times ten, to reconstruct what the kid must have been before his IED was diagnosed…

“Na,” Theo concluded. “I never liked brats.”

“Thought so,” Liam breathed.

“I don’t think you would have given me a choice, though.”

They shared a complicit smile. Though he enjoyed teasing and keeping the younger man on his toes, Theo had been on his best behavior all night long, seemingly intent on honoring his own end of their bargain. Liam decided his current demeanor did not especially differ from his usual ways: his packmate had simply added a touch of softness to his words and actions, as if he handled Liam with respectful extra care. Liam was rapidly growing addicted to the resulting tenderness he had been sorely missing at the beginning of the evening. They remained in the toboggan a while, digging details about their younger selves to entertain hypotheses and rewrite their shared history. Until: “I’m cold.”

Outside of their makeshift home, the rain had ceased, but the temperature had significantly dropped. The boys left the playground and climbed the fence back to the sidewalk under the cover of the night, hurrying towards their flat and its promise of welcoming heat.

“You know what’s great about this date of ours?” Theo joked as they reached their street number and slowed down to let him catch his breath. “There’s no qualm about whether you’ll take me home or not. Takes off a lot of pressure, doesn’t it?”

Liam tensed. Thus the spell had broken.

“Don’t freak out on me Dunbar, I’m not going to kiss you.”

The boy huffed, striding up the alley leading to their apartment building. He aggressively pushed the door open and waltzed in the lobby, stomping towards the broken elevator. Since they had moved in at the start of the school year, the lift had been in service for a cumulated total of two hours; nevertheless, the fact had never prevented Liam from punching in the call button whenever they entered the building, as if the possibility of a miracle still existed within the realm of their messed-up lives. The orphaned chimera passed the younger boy, who glared at the stubborn elevator cab one last time before following suit, and started his ascension towards the fourth floor.

“It’s just…” the pouting werewolf began to develop, instead of dignifying Theo’s provocation with a response. He never took the bait anymore: no matter how many hooks and sinkers the older boy sowed along the meanders of their tentative friendship, Liam would skid around them, steering the conversation back to its meaningful and open-hearted core. Or, he would trample all over the traps, anxious to assert his claim. “Can I be honest?”

“You’re incapable of lying, so you might as well.”

“We had a nice time tonight,” Liam elaborated contemplatively, reproachfully, and seemingly wedged into his non-sequiturs, as they reached the first floor. “Your comment just reminded me that nothing is waiting for us at home… At all… And… after a nice Valentine’s Day date… yes… people usually make out and… things… happen.”

Theo abruptly turned around on the landing.

“What makes you think I have sex on the first date?”

“I don’t either!”

“Do too,” the chimera chided, rather harshly, before resuming their climb up the staircase. “You are totally the type to give it up wholeheartedly. I have watched you suck face with Hayden enough times to know that.”

Liam marked a pause, his foot nervously tapping on the first step, to calm down, and then ran to catch up. Theo would have bet Liam’s hand was robotically tousling the boy’s brown hair, the repeated motion telling of his disgruntled and aggravated state.

“I didn’t mean sex specifically.”

“Well, I ain’t sucking your face tonight,” Theo sassed. “Or your dick, for that matter.”

“I don’t want you to suck my d-…”

“Really?” The chimera faced his roommate once more, suddenly coy at Liam’s resulting temporary loss of balance. “Look at my lips!” he instructed as he continued to walk up the stairs backwards. “Look at them carefully! And tell me you have never fantasized about shutting me up while the tip of your cock rests against my tongue…”

The beta wolf looked. He looked until Theo reached the second floor.

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yeah?” Theo asked, breaking eye contact and presenting his back to his packmate again. “Well, you ain’t tapping that, either.” Rejoicing when Liam groaned at the exaggerated sway of his hips, he mulled over the boy’s frustrations during the last two flights of steps and stopped him when they reached their flat door. He exhaled loudly. “But. Since you and I are in business tonight, here’s my proposal: I can take care of yours if you take care of mine.”

The beta’s double take was worth every risk of being mocked for an indecent proposition. Theo deemed the kid’s reaction worthy of a complementary mental image: “It’s a dick, Liam. It won’t be that different from jerking off.”

But, true to form, Liam didn’t rise to the occasion.

“I guess…”

“Choice is yours.”

“Can I be really honest?” Liam wondered, emphasizing the adverb in an ominous manner.

“Since you are already started…”

“The cuddles, after, are what I miss the most, I think.”

Due to their more canine instincts, werewolves were usually considered quite the tactile species, and Liam’s hunger for touches never disappointed in the matter. But Theo, because of his upbringing, or because of the artificial nature of his supernatural powers, or maybe even because of the never-ending struggle between the coyote and the wolf within his DNA, never seemed particularly inclined to hug. He fished for his key in his pants’ back pocket, grey eyes focused on the massive mahogany door. Liam’s sole brushed against the doormat.

“What?” the blue-eyed boy prompted.

“Since we’re being honest…”

“What?”

“I have seen you after lacrosse training. You’re very sweaty. It’s gross. I don’t want to cuddle you with your post-sex sticky sucky skin...” Theo whined, overplaying the disgust in yet another attempt to escape the serious turn their innocent conversation had taken. Quelling the budding disappointment in his chest, the younger boy offered a simple acceptance to his packmate’s concern about perspiration.

“I understand.”

“… Unless I sleep in your bed.”

“What?”

Theo shrugged.

“Your stink staves off the nightmares.” Hiding his own emotions under a scoff, the werewolf examined the new bargain. The McCall pack had had to notice, after the beta had broken Theo out of his private hell, the signs and twitches of PTSD. For a while, the reformed villain had been haunted by the endless visions of his sister Tara going after his heart and tearing the bloody organ out of his chest, following his shocked fall with bloated dead eyes and an ugly sneer on her blue lips. Liam had wrongfully believed his friend rid of his night terrors. The younger boy’s heart sank at the admission of his mistake.

“Can I be really really honest?” he drawled teasingly.

“It’s not a competition -…” Theo remarked.

“…You say that because you’re losing,” Liam countered, happily falling back to the familiar competitiveness of their banter, the door to their shared flat still locked, as well as thoroughly forgotten. “You snore.”

“I do not.”

“When you don’t, you talk in your sleep. And you bully people into being the big spoon. In your sleep,” the beta wolf elaborated, reveling in the older man’s gawking outrage.

“You said what happened in that motel in Ohio…”

“You just brought it back into my bed! I’ll tell you what: okay, you can sleep in my bed. But you’ll bring me breakfast in it tomorrow morning.”

Theo all but beamed at the agreed trade-off: a light smirk ghosted at the edge of his mouth, while his irises, momentarily, reflected the staircase ceiling neon lamps in a different, entrancing fashion. The evaporating citrus scent Liam identified as relief floated on the landing and the boy watched as the chimera’s shoulders, now freed from a tension he had until then disregarded, relaxed.

“Eggs?” Theo asked, feigning disinterest.

“Two. And bacon.”

“One toasted slice of bread?”

“Three,” Liam jested, feeling his smile grow in spite of his best efforts.

“Two.”  
“Okay for two. Add one cup of coffee and one glass of freshly pressed orange juice.”

“A mug of coffee, and enough coffee brewed for a refill. No OJ.”

“But OJ…”

“I’ll bring you an orange,” Theo compromised.

“Deal.”

They almost shook on the deal, but the older boy simply had to deliver the death blow. In his haste to appear strong and independent, he tended to press vain issues and arguments, covering the traits he perceived as faults and weaknesses under a standoffish demeanor. Having forsaken up to the very concept of love in his life, he had long ago chosen to be feared, or even hated, rather than preyed upon.

“Now… can I be violently honest?” Theo mused, wearing a smirk as a warning for his inevitably offensive behavior. He took pride in his ability to hide his insecurities under insults. However, Liam had grown increasingly immune to his attacks, and equally persistent in his exhausting, and somewhat successful, attempts at building a truer and healthier connection.

“If you must…”

“Morning breath.”

“I do not have morning breath!” the younger man punctuated, mostly to satisfy his roommate’s need for a dramatic outlet to their current heart-to-heart.

“Everybody has morning breath, except for the dead people. But yours, yours beats records. Yours st-…”

“Fine. I’ll brush my teeth while you make breakfast.”

“Fine. And you’re doing the dishes.”

“Huh-huh. You’re not pawning off your chores with this! We have a system, and it works.”

The chimera grinned, unapologetic for his unsubtle tentative: chances of success appeared slim from the start, and trying could never hurt – or, rather, bigger failures to higher risks had caused him, in the past, a lot more pain. Additionally, they had indeed surprisingly easily organized their cohabitation, finding instinctively where their talents and habits slotted together harmoniously. Theo constantly tidied their living-room up, far more at ease in a clean room, with the entirety of his belongings packed in a corner, ready to leave and flee at the first sign of danger, while Liam filled their flat with life and comfort, investing their ridiculously small savings into colorful throw pillows, quirky lamps and inspirational mugs he abandoned all around the apartment. Paradoxically, the chimera did not mind as much the dust accumulating on the sprung floor; Liam almost often vacuum-cleaned the whole surface, and, in spite of his mother’s delicious recipes, he gladly delegated the cooking to the chimera. Though he debuted in the kitchen, Theo enjoyed mixing new flavors and tasting new combinations, often getting challenged by his roommate’s utterly random grocery shopping lists: a week prior, the young werewolf had proudly brought home two chicken filets, raw rolled Italian sausage and a pound of bacon, announcing he felt like BBQ; Theo had stared dejectedly at their tiny oven before improvising a meat-lover pot pasta his roommate had siphoned, already begging for seconds as he was wiping his mouth.

“Then I get Netflix privileges until I go to bed tomorrow night…” Theo tried again.

“As long as you let me snuggle against you, you can have the remote.”

“Deal,” said Theo.

“Deal,” Liam replied.

They exchanged a solemn nod and, finally, the older boy inserted the key in the door lock. Finally, he turned it counter-clockwise inside the mechanism. Finally, they let themselves in. And the awkwardness slipped inside in their footsteps. Agreeing to trade theoretical hand jobs on the door mat had not prepared them for the silence and the darkness, welcoming them in their living-room. For a few seconds, they stood in the doorway, dazed by the unexpected loss of their self-confidence, neither looking at the other.

“Well,” Theo shouted, thus effectively completing to kill the mood with a clap of his hands; Liam’s similar gesture before they went on their pretend date felt like days ago. Slowly, he rearranged the couch to his liking and regained his favorite reading position. He picked up his reading glasses, already flipping through his overused version of _The Great Gatsby._ With reverence, the beta wolf joined him, slumping haphazardly on the pillows. And, for a moment, they both pretended they could resume their evening and forget about their commitments. Then Liam, lips twisted in a mischievous pout, jumped and deftly stole his packmate’s glasses to try them on. The chimera sprung forward as if he had been waiting for an occasion to act.

“Looks like someone needs to cool off some more!” Theo declared. Without warning, he plucked his roommate from the couch and threw him over his shoulder. Glasses clattered on the parquet.

“Let me go, Raeken!”

The chimera sagged under Liam’s weight, balancing himself lower on his knees to accommodate for the untimely pounding of fists against his back, as well as for the kid’s legs, kicking the air in front of him, as he hobbled along towards their bathroom.

“Seriously, if you don’t let me go…” the beta werewolf threatened between two hiccups of laughter, completely missing his opportunity to grab the door frame and stop their progression. The walls would probably not have held against their opposite strengths anyhow.

Ignoring Liam’s half-hearted pleas for instant release, the older boy carefully deposited him against the shower wall, paying extra attention to ensure that his packmate’s shoulder blades would soundly bump against the sand-colored square tiles. His victim’s insults drowned under the water spray Theo promptly set to lukewarm. The fight immediately left Liam, whose arms fell at his sides, hands soon splayed against the fast warming wall.

Theo stared, silently, as wet patches grew on Liam’s shirt, plastering the fabric against his chest. On his body, the pink of his skin mixed with the light blue of the cloth, through which curled brown hairs started to appear. The older boy’s eyes snapped to Liam’s face, hanging low under a suddenly heavier fringe. Tentative fingers brushed against a picking nipple. The werewolf straightened up, already pushing back from the shower wall to regain some composure. His attempt at control was blocked by Theo’s left forearm, which now barred the younger man’s torso; Theo’s right hand hovered near the button of Liam’s pants.

“Do you still want this?”

The ripple of Liam’s nod reached Theo’s consciousness, but he pushed through.

“Use your words, little wolf. Do you still want this?”

Spurred by the boy’s sighed admission, they both fumbled to unbutton his jeans, snickering like naughty middle-schoolers as they peeled the garment off his thighs, just enough to roll his black trunks below his balls. They shared an eloquent look then, and the werewolf leaned back against the washed-up yellow tiling, inciting his packmate to reposition his arm across his pectorals, effectively grounding him once more against the shower wall.

“Stay,” Theo ordered, a vocal reminder that the power balance in their relationship had fully shifted since their first encounter. Feeling the disarming blue eyes on him, he dropped his own gaze to stare at Liam’s dick, already half-hard and bouncing with every drop of water falling on its tip. Curious in spite of the rising tension, the chimera slid his index and middle fingers under the beta’s scalding cock to steady the shaft and rubbed the pad of his thumb around the slit in circles, excruciatingly brushing the foreskin back.

Liam hissed. The sound resounded a second against the bathroom walls, highlighting the battering of the water drops against the enamel. Theo dragged his palm down the werewolf’s dick and closed his fingers around the hardening shaft; the hand glided back up until the tip disappeared under the foreskin, and down again to fully bring the glans out. Far above the scene, the werewolf trapped a moan between pinched lips.

Afraid to hurt his consenting victim, Theo solely focused on the pressure of his fingers on the soft skin, on the drying water he used to lube the back-and-forth of his calloused palm against the rippling shaft, on the pooling precum at the edge of the slit. Soon his vision field narrowed down to Liam’s hard cock, encompassing its reddening head, which flashed under the pass of Theo’s relentless thumb, and its bouncing balls as they slapped rhythmically against the younger man’s hairy thighs. The musky smell of their combined arousal perfumed the shower stall, and, under the spice of their pheromones, traces of Liam’s own scent, unadulterated and tantalizing, teased the chimera’s acute olfactive senses. Theo’s mouth filled with drool. He accelerated the pace of his strokes, inwardly begging Liam to fall over the edge before his own control failed him.

Opting for a more comfortable position to center himself, he freed Liam’s upper body of his weight, certain that the beta wouldn’t move a muscle, and kneeled under the shower spray, barely feeling the drops of water as they progressively invaded the fabric of his own clothes. Replacing his right hand, thumb outwards, around Liam’s trembling cock, he applied more traction, ever fastening and speeding up the rub of his fingers against the pulsating shaft. The fingers of his free hand moved on their own to pull and massage his roommate’s balls. A choke and the telling thud of a skull banging against the ceramic tiles answered his adventurous initiative. Theo dared a glance upwards and his rhythm faltered at the sight Liam offered him: where he had expected the younger boy’s frowning closed eyes, he was met by an intense golden stare, a predatory glint, cataloguing every single detail of a setting before pouncing into action, and awakening the wolf genes in his own boiling blood. Mouth slightly parted, framed by bitten lips, as red and plump as Theo had ever seen them, Liam panted in synchronicity with the quick rise and fall of his chest.

Resolving to use the loud thumping of the beta’s heart as his metronome, Theo continued to increase the pace of his strokes, eager to discover how loud he could make Liam whine.

“Theo… J-just…”

Liam came in a breathy gasp, his limbs tensing as his balls retracted and pulsed under him. The obscene pitter-patter of the projected semen on the shower tray merged with the clearer taps of the water drops falling from the spray. The earthy tang of cum, with its characteristic whiffs of plaster, twirled a moment in the shower cabin, and eventually receded, the memory of its essence having long been burned in Theo’s memory. Boneless, the beta werewolf’s body slid down the tiles, gently, until he sat in the shower tray, still fully-clad, aside from his crotch area, the water spray still raining above him.

“Well,” Theo mumbled before standing up, ungracefully discarding his own clothes and throwing them, wet and rumpled, directly into the drum of the washing machine. “I’ll let you clean up a bit?” he awkwardly suggested after a pause, having changed his mind at the last minute about his proffered words.

“You called me ‘little wolf’…” the younger man accused.

“What?”

“Earlier? You called me ‘little wolf’. You hadn’t done that in a while.”

The chimera denied, which the whole pack had learnt constituted his default strategy every time he was thrown off by the turn of events. Lies and diversion had always come naturally to him. Yet, faced with Liam’s earnest and unwavering expression, he relented. Faintly.

“Guess I won’t be able to call you that for a while, now,” he admitted, pointing at the younger man’s groin with a slight dip of his chin. And, disregarding the rising blush on Liam’s cheeks, he walked out of the bathroom without another word, mind still reeling and dick still hard with the unexpectedness of his latest deeds. Meanwhile, the werewolf laid under the water spray, toes twitching with the aftershocks of his powerful orgasm and a soft smile on his thirsty lips, waiting for his brain to fully reboot. Eventually, he gathered his bearings and stood up. He shivered with the rough caresses of his wet clothing against his sensitive body as he stepped out of his black jeans and let his shirt slide down his arms. He dumped them unceremoniously in the washing machine before lathering himself in soap, following with his own hands the ghosting sensations of another man coaxing pleasure out of him. A full shudder struck through him. Rushing through his rinsing, he tied the first towel his hand grabbed around his waist, leaving his hair to drip on the floor as he printed watery footsteps on the parquet between the bathroom and Theo’s closed bedroom door.

Inside, the older boy laid on his back on the bed, long fingers dancing up and down his circumcised cock. The werewolf jumped on his packmate and sat on his own heels, blocking Theo’s thighs under his knees. The sudden movement undid the knot of the towel, which glided smoothly down Liam’s legs, leaving nothing to the imagination. Theo had already gotten an eyeful anyhow, so Liam ignored his own nudity to focus on the whiskers the water drops falling from his fringe drew on the chimera’s cheeks under him.

“You couldn’t wait for me, could you?” the younger boy whispered. “Unless… are you still okay with this?”

“Stealing my lines now, tiny wolf? Oh, how low you’ve fallen.”

Liam responded to his attitude with patience and kindness, and eventually Theo let go of his dick to fist the bedspread: “Yes. Touch me. Please.”

Pleased with his approval, the beta wolf smiled contentedly while his curious fingers feathered around his shaft and tested the suppleness of the glans. Pinned under his weight, Theo had already shut his eyelids, inspiring deeply and irregularly through his nose.

“Hey,” Liam gently called. He unclenched Theo’s left hand from its grip on the sheets to wrap it around his own and guided their intertwined fingers back to his packmate’s rigid cock. “Show me. How to make you feel good.”

Theo’s exhale sounded a lot like a half-controlled gasp. Still, he opened his eyes, darker with arousal, and tried to push through the overpowering haze submerging his senses to follow the instructions. His palm tightened around Liam’s, applying more pressure on his shaft; the boy’s phalanges rubbed against his cock’s head with each back-and-forth, dragging along the ridge. Under him, the werewolf felt Theo’s pelvis contract and thrust upwards a couple of times, and, half a minute later, both of the chimera’s hands grappled for purchase back on the bed. Liam continued the masturbation, frequently alternating his pace and grasp: as long as the underside of Theo’s glans was stimulated, the older man seemed to enjoy himself. The blue-eyed boy observed the flex of his roommate’s biceps as Theo clutched the sheets, the glistening of his fluttering abs as he steadily lost control over his respiratory functions, the quake of his scruffy jaw as he struggled for composure, even now, with his dick in another man’s hand. In the bedroom, the fresh smell of soap turned dirty as plumes of aroused musk evaporated from their skin to swivel in the air, dizzying Liam with their combined smell – and stripping him from his usual inhibitions.

“Theo,” he murmured, waiting for the ever-changing irises to focus on him again. “Help me help you,” he pleaded. “Tell me. How does it go? What… what do you think about?”

While he punctuated his request by bending over and blowing on the tip of Theo’s oozing cock, the chimera refused to answer – or, at least, it seemed so to Liam, if his friend’s shaking head was anything to go by. He retaliated by stopping the jerking movements altogether. Theo keened and caved.

“Scott.”

Liam hummed appreciatively as he resumed the pleasurable torture with a renewed vigor. His free hand wandered on Theo’s smooth chest, fingers splayed to snake up his ribs and catch on his nipples. “Scott’s hot. He really buffed up recently, didn’t he? The tanned skin, the almond-shaped soulful eyes… Do they work for you?”

“Y-yes.”

“That crooked jaw…” Liam babbled unconsciously, voice hoarse with his own excitation. “Do you wonder how it fits around your long cock?” he wondered as he temporarily interrupted his slide up and down the shaft to gather the precum on his thumb and to lather the tip until the whole head shone with gorgeous sin. A tick in Theo’s heart tipped the beta off. “Oh. Do you get on your knees for him? Do you lust after his Alpha cock?” he rambled seductively. “I heard Scott’s packing, you know. Do you think you would choke on his dick? Take so much of it in your mouth you cannot breathe for a few seconds and have to let go before taking it again and again and again?”

The younger boy pinched Theo’s budding nipple; his hand on the chimera’s dick set up a punishing pace. Words continued to pour out of Liam’s mouth as precum carried on leaking on his moving hand. “What happens next in that fantasy of yours, Theo? Do you let him cum on your face? Do you swallow? Tell me…”

“Y-yes,” Theo breathed, head shaking from head to right on his pillow, cheeks reddened, strands of hair now plastered against his forehead and temples. “Please don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop…”

“Is it just Scott, though?” Liam prodded, even as his nails grazed across Theo’s chest to play with the other nipple. In his grasp, Theo’s scalding dick trembled, and he responded by a rougher, longer drag against the glans’ ridge. “Is it just Scott?”

“St-Stiles, too.”

“And?”

Theo whined instead of answering, forcing Liam to repeat the question. He blew another puff of warm air on Theo’s tip. “And?”

“M-Malia… Parrish… Cor-Corey.”

“God, that’s all of them.”

“I-I… Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop…”

“Is that what you think about? Pleasuring them… Servicing them… Worshipping them…” Liam ranted, alternating his efforts on the nubs on Theo’s chest, rubbing the pad of his fingers on his cock, allowing him to ride his high just on the right side of pain. “You lick and you suck and you let them use you for their pleasure…”

“Y-yes.”

“They want you to… They want you.”

“Yeah…”

“They thank you, don’t they? They tell you how good you’re being, how good you make them feel, isn’t that right? ‘You’re so good, Theo, doing so good’, is that what they say to you?” Persuaded that a demonstration was in order, Liam released the sensitive nipples, supported himself on his left arm, and moved upwards to reach the chimera’s face, thus giving a long, twisting tug on his dick. The beta wolf’s own cock grazed against Theo’s abs. He ignored it, concentrated on bringing his mouth closer to his packmate’s ear, and whispered: “You’re so good.”

Theo’s whole body bent upwards as ropes of cum painted both of their stomachs. Liam stared at the chimera’s mouth, wide open in a silent shout, at the curved frown of his eyebrows, at the twitch of his nose when the new smell of semen hit their nostrils.

“There’s cum everywhere,” Theo complained, without even having opened his eyes, whose current color Liam surprised himself wondering about. The younger boy wiped their skins with a corner of Theo’s sheets, then pulled at his hand, in a reminiscence of an earlier, more innocent, time.

“Come!”

Liam led Theo to his own bedroom, laid him in his own bed, and immediately snuggled against him, resting his head on his friend’s chest. He secured the chimera’s torso in his embrace, trapped a leg between his, and sighed happily.

“Are we good?” he inquired.

“Yes, minuscule wolf, we’re good. We’re very good.”

“Do you want me to go take another shower before we fall asleep?”

“Na,” Theo answered after a fake hesitation. “Breakfast in bed tomorrow morning?”

“That’s the plan,” Liam yawned. “And toothpaste.”

His roommate chuckled; the rumbles dissipated along their spent limbs.

“This,” he said. “I could get used to this.”

“I’m tired. Sleep now. Tomorrow I’ll cut you a new deal, okay?” the younger boy suggested drowsily.

The chimera laughed again, already reverting to his natural elusiveness.

“Happy Valentine’s Day Liam!”

Theo kissed Liam’s forehead then, but sleep had already overtaken his pretend date.

**Author's Note:**

> Pick a number and send me your vote!  
> 1 - Ruh Roh.  
> 2 - Theo, your fond is showing. This is embarrassing.  
> 3 - Now... Kissss  
> 4 - Let's mess it up a bit, shall we?


End file.
